The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business

Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

EXUMA businesses yesterday said they will believe there are $1.2bn in investments in the pipeline for the island, as identified by the deputy prime minister, when they see them materialise.

And besides questioning the magnitude of the investments detailed by Chester Cooper at last week’s Exuma Business Outlook conference, they are also questioning whether the island’s infrastructure outdated infrastructure can cope with these multi-million dollar projects.

Ramon Darville, Darville Lumber’s general manager, told Tribune Business that electricity reliability on Exuma is “terrible” with periodic outages. “I just landed back in Exuma and I see a bunch of money and equipment just sitting around at the airport,” he added. “They are supposed to be building an airport, but I could only imagine what’s the cost to those companies to just have their equipment sitting there.

“The airport has been stalled for over six months now with nothing happening with regard to construction. It’s been at least six months now. I haven’t heard anything that it is going to continue. Right now we are down to American Airlines doing one flight a day, but it’s summer time and it’s normally dead around this time of year here. American Airlines does one flight a day, and Silver Airlines does about three or four per week. There is just not a lot of action out there.”

Mr Cooper last week reiterated the Prime Minister’s pledge that construction work on Exuma International Airport will resume this month after the project stalled due to non-payment of the contractor. Fresh financing has been found after the previous Free National Movement administration signed a $60m contract to upgrade the facility via works forecast to last two years.

Mr Darville, meanwhile, added: “We are still dealing with things like electricity. Our electricity stays going off all of the time. Then there are a few people on Exuma that have solar systems, but they can’t tie into the grid and it’s not worth anything because BPL doesn’t have the proper meters so they could actually get something back or at least allow our electric bills to go down.”

Mr Cooper said last week detailed projects for Cave Cay, Hog Cay, Elizabeth Island, the Sampson Cays and Roker’s Point Estates. Mr Darville, though, said most of these properties had failed under previous investors. “Cave Cay is way down the road from the mainland. That’s in the Exuma Cays and I don’t even know if that will affect us,” he added.

“I heard Sampson Cay got bought out again, but then again that’s past Staniel Cay and that is way down the road from the mainland, too. That’s halfway to Nassau almost. With Roker’s Point, they built one house about 10 years ago and nothing really has been going on there. But they did do a lot of infrastructure work like roads and carving out land. It is right next to the Sandals Resort.”

Ricardo Morley, owner/ operator of Shop Rite Mart, Great Exuma, added: “All I can say is we hope. A lot of these investments are proposed, and we hope some will materialise, but we just have to wait and see. We want to see shovels in the ground and something coming up out of the ground.

“The infrastructure is pretty much in place. We will just have to expand what we need to accommodate whatever comes on stream. But for the most part the infrastructure is in place. It’s just a matter of upgrading.”

Not dismissing the $1.2bn in proposed investments for the island, Mr Morely reiterated there have been a lot of promises in the past from different administrations but “not all of those proposals have materialised, so it’s not like everybody is holding their breath. We’re just waiting to see what materialises out of this new announcement”.

O’Brian Strachan, owner/operator of Strachan’s Service Station, said: “Improvements are on the way in terms of the roads. The roads are being restructured and being rebuilt right now, and then you’ve got the airport terminals that are also in effect. The infrastructure is coming up on par, so I guess by the time this development comes around then it should be should be ready for it.”